


Bang to Rights (Koi-tus Interr—)

by HowDoTheyRiseUp



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Batman, F/M, Fish Puns, Giant Mutated Fish Monster, Minor Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown is Batgirl, Stephanie Brown is Trying Her Best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22862758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowDoTheyRiseUp/pseuds/HowDoTheyRiseUp
Summary: Stephanie Brown is Batgirl and, aside from the occasional giant fish monster and overdue essay, it isThe Best Thingthat has ever happened to her. She's leaner, meaner, and aubergine-er than ever before. Now all she has to do is keep from completely humiliating herself in front of her predecessor/mentor/boss (Barbara Gordon), and the new Batman who's only just recently accepted her right to vigilant-ify in 'his' city.She's got this. Piece of cake.(Ah,fishsticks,who does she think she's kidding?)
Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 55





	Bang to Rights (Koi-tus Interr—)

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Bruce's 'death' and the reign of DickBats and his stab-happy little Robin. Just a little experiment in exploring Steph's voice (because she is such a wonderful, relatable _mess_ who tries SO HARD). 
> 
> Hopefully, someday you can forgive me for the truly horrible never-ending fish puns.
> 
> Update 8/24/20: Now with illustrations!

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/189860931@N04/50261400101/in/dateposted-public/)

Life as an undergraduate was a lot more complicated than Stephanie had anticipated; for example, she doubted that her professor would accept “had to stop giant rampaging koi fish” as a valid reason to grant her an extension on the 7-page paper she had yet to start. A _second_ extension. Fishsticks.

Speaking of which. Koi. Giant. Mutated? Magic? Bio-engineered? (Edible? Ooh— no, Steph. Don’t go there. _Bad_ idea.)

Tim could probably have identified Koi-zilla’s origin story at a glance, along with the (undoubtedly) mad scientist responsible, the location of his secret evil lab, his weaknesses, and probably his childhood pets while he was at it. Steph… can’t.

No, Steph. We’re trying to stop with the comparing-to-Tim thing. Self-image! Positivity! All good things!

Anyways, she felt kind of bad just leaving Koi-boy (-girl, whatever, she’s not gonna even pretend she knows what fishbits are which on a _normal_ fish, let alone one that’s wobbling around Gotham on unhelpfully fin-like legs) shoved halfway through some little currency exchange place’s front window, but, like, sleep. Essay. Not necessarily in that order. Plus there was no way that thing was fitting in the Slingshot. Surely Gotham had people who deal with this kind of stuff? The city got attacked by, like, irradiated armadillos every other week, they’ve gotta have some sort of Enhanced Animal Control. _Batman_ sure as heck never wastes his time cleaning up after himself.

Wast _ed_.

Right.

Of course, he literally had a butler to pick up his shit for him, so. She could just imagine him sending Alfred out to clean up his latest super-villain battle with a dust-pan and those big yellow rubber gloves he likes so much. And Alfred would probably be all “Yes, Master Bruce,” but, like, totally salty because Alfred was absolutely the undisputed sass-master of the Batcave, even if he’d never admit it.

When she’d first started as Robin, she’d been almost as intimidated by him as she had by Bruce. Because with Bruce, if she sucked at the Robin stuff, she’d thought (assumed) she’d have a chance to get _better_. After all, Tim might’ve been good to begin with, but she’d _seen_ how he’d still been learning, improving, right up until the day when he stepped out of the cape and she’d (stupidly) stepped in. Robin… Robin was skill, yeah, and instinct, but more than anything, Robin was _work_. And even if she never had the rest of it, she’d always known she could do the _work_.

But with Alfred, there was nothing much she could do about the fact that she didn’t quite belong in the world of butlers and billionaires and stately Wayne Manor. She was just a kid from a bad neighborhood, her dad in prison. The streets were in her blood, in how she talked and carried herself, and every time Alfred in his crisply-pressed butler suit looked at her, she was just _waiting_ for him to toss her out the kitchen door or something.

Knowing what she knows now about Jason Todd, Steph suspects that Alfred really couldn’t have cared less. Might even have appreciated the nostalgia of it, a little. Besides, they’d come to an understanding, her and Alfie. She’d keep an eye on Bruce and tattle whenever he’d pulled his stitches (which was both annoyingly often and still less than it really should’ve been for someone who literally spent every night jumping off buildings and bare-knuckle boxing with Killer Croc), and in return, whenever she made it home after a long night’s Robin-ing, she’d find that baggies of, like, the best brownies and peanut butter cookies she’d ever had in her _life_ had miraculously appeared in her bag.

(Plus, she was pretty sure he was on her side on the whole “Bruce was a total dick-brained jackass” thing.)

Yeah, her and Alfie, they were tight. He’d even washed and ironed (!!!) her costume that one time she fell down the sewer chasing after Damian, which almost made up for the fact that her hair smelled like sewage for a week.

Another good reason to leave Koi-ng Kong to the mercy of Gotham’s municipal system: she knew for a fact that fish-stink _never came out of upholstery_. She was willing to risk death and dismemberment for the sake of Gotham, but eternal fish-stink?

How about _no_.

After abandoning Obi-Wan Koi-nobi to his fishy fate, Steph really did intend to go home. Really, she did.

But she couldn’t exactly take the Slingshot home and the autopilot had been finicky since she accidentally spilled a can of Red Rhinopunch on the dashboard (energy drinks— good for sleep-deprived vigilantes, not so good for state-of-the-art electronics. Who knew?).

So, really, the only responsible thing to do was to manually drive it back to Oracle’s place so she’d be able to take a look at it without having to trek all the way out to the Cave. And _then_ , since she was there already and it was only like 2:30 (still prime vigilante-ing hours), Steph figured she might as well check in with Oracle to see if she’d heard about any fish-obsessed mad scientists lately, and—

Yeah. That essay was only, like, 30% of her grade, right? Maybe the professor would buy that Killer Croc ate her laptop…

After she’d started working as Batgirl (well, after Barbara had _accepted_ that she’d started working as Batgirl), Oracle had added her to the Clocktower’s systems so that she could come and go freely unless Barbara actively locked her out (not that Steph had any lingering insecurities there or anything), or set the system to privacy mode, which required _all_ visitors to ring the doorbell like normal, socially-adjusted people so that Oracle could decide if she wanted to talk to them or not.

Steph had tried to be considerate the first few times she’d visited, until Barbara eventually told her flat-out to just walk right in; at any moment, Oracle could be juggling up to half-a-dozen Justice League-level operations, combating cyber-terrorism, and talking to her dad the Police Commissioner who _totally_ didn’t know she’s, like, the M to the superhero community’s many Bonds. Plus it wasn’t like after the whole thing with the Joker and associated trauma Barbara didn’t keep an obsessively close eye on who was walking up to her door, so… yeah. Now Steph just kind of pokes her head in, and if there are no civilians hanging around and nobody’s naked, just kind of assumes she’s good.

Tonight when she enters the apartment, the bank of computer is dark and empty, which is… unusual. Most nights, there’s usually _someone_ still on patrol until at least four, and that means Barbara’s usually up with them, even if most of her attention is on other work or research. Nobody wants to call for help only to find there’s no one on the other end of the line. That way lies such cautionary tales as Jason Todd and Stephanie Brown.

(Maybe that’s unfair— their problems hadn’t been so much that they _couldn’t_ call for help as that they were too arrogant, too stubborn, too _reckless_ to want to until it was already too late.)

Though… Stephanie hadn’t really thought much of it, but Barbara had been surprisingly quiet all night. She’d mentioned, when she’d sent Batgirl off after Citizen Koi-ne (ok, that one’s a stretch, but sue her, she’s running on, like, four hours of sleep over the last two days, quipiness can wait until she’s running on something more substantial than 3/4 of a can of Red Rhinopunch), that Batman had needed some help with a case and she’d be offline for a while.

But that had been a little after 10. If she’d been working all this time, she’d still be at the computers, wouldn’t she? It wasn’t like her to sign off for the night without at least giving Batgirl a heads-up. Steph’s (admittedly still a work in progress) detective sense was tingling.

Barbara’s wheelchair was sitting next to the couch, empty.

Contrary to what TV would have you think, spilled wine is actually pretty easy to tell apart from bloodstains. If, you know, you’re exposed to bloodstains often enough to be used to that kind of thing. So yeah, Steph can tell at a glance that the mulberry-black pool next to the far wheel is _just_ wine, still damply vivid against the carpet fibers.

But the thumb-sized smear on the edge of the couch? _That’s_ blood.

When Steph crouched down, moving as if in a dream, it was still tacky to the touch.

_This can’t be happening_.

A noise, from somewhere deeper in the apartment. Every nerve in Steph’s body went on alert.

She rose fluidly and extracted a batarang from her belt, moving on silent feet towards the hallway that she knew from past experience led both to Barbara’s bedroom and her armory. Once a Bat, always a Bat.

She hesitated for a moment at the end of the hall because the doors were closed and she couldn’t remember which was which and if she chose wrong, then bye-bye goes the element of surprise.

What would Tim say? Probably not “Trust your instincts”; if Stephanie hadn’t already proved that her instincts were notoriously bad, she didn’t know what would. Tim would’ve remembered which door it was in the first place, Tim had probably memorized the layout of Barbara’s apartment the first time he visited, that little nerd— No! Positivity! Self-esteem! Barbara in danger!

That noise again, a thud. And then a shout, wordless, desperate; Barbara’s voice.

Steph had one moment to think _You messed with the wrong Oracle, asshole!_ and then her full weight was hitting the door and it burst open with with a crack of splintering wood and by the time it rebounded against the wall, Barbara was already diving for the nightstand and the weapons she undoubtedly kept there, dislodging the dark-haired figure between her legs.

The very familiar dark-haired…

…between her…

…she…

“Oh my god,” Stephanie’s mouth said, without any direct input from Stephanie’s brain. “This can’t be happening.”

“Stephanie?” Barbara gasped, lowering the— was that a taser? Oracle totally almost tased her! “What are you— What happened? Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Stephanie shrilled. “Am I _okay?_ I thought you were being attacked! I thought— And you—” She made the mistake of glancing down and, yup, that’s definitely Dick Grayson. Very Dick Grayson. Very naked, very Dick. Um, Grayson.

It’s probably a bad time to notice that he really is super hot. Like, male-model, his-abs-could-be-used-for-an-anatomy-textbook hot. Tim, the few times she’d seen him without a shirt, had been no slouch himself, but he’d also been, like, 14. Between his gangly limbs and pointy elbows and two chest hairs, he’d been _cute_ , sure, but this is… well.

Not that she’s— Like, six-pack aside, he’s totally too old for her and, you know, _Batman_. And his Batman is not the same as Bruce’s Batman and they pretty much established during that first case that Batgirl is an independent agent, but… she might be a Bat, but right now he’s _The_ Bat and that makes him somewhere between her coworker and her— not boss, but probably landlord.

Either way, definitely _not_ someone she wants to be seeing buck-naked but for the thick white bandage taped to his sternum (or at least, it used to be white; clearly Bruce isn’t—wasn’t—the only one with a bad habit of popping stitches, but at least it explains the blood on the couch).

And definitely, _definitely_ not someone she wants to have just interrupted in the middle of eating her big sister/mentor figure out. Enthusiastically, if the sheen of wetness on his chin and his flush and, er, namesake are any judge.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she said again, and wished more than anything that you could _actually literally die_ from embarrassment. She’d basically died once already, and she’d take that 200 times over this. “Ok, so, um, clearly I made a mistake and you’re not being attacked, which I’m sure we’re all grateful for, so, um, since you don’t need me, I think I’ll just go. Now.”

“I think that would be best,” Barbara said, and she was still a little breathless and oh god that meant the shouting earlier— and the stuff on Dick’s face— she’d totally—

“Right!” Stephanie squeaked. “Okay! Leaving! See you, um, tomorrow, Oracle. Dick.”

Of all the possible nicknames for Richard, _why_ did he have to pick that one? Her eyes only darted down for an instant, but it was enough; he caught it and followed her gaze down and seemed to realize for the first time just how much interest little Richard was still showing.

“Um,” he said and grabbed for the nearest object to preserve what little remained of his modesty.

It just so happens that the nearest object to hand happened to be black and round and distinctly spiky and that… is not as helpful as he thinks. Like, that’s probably someone’s fetish. _Euurghh._

She wrenched her eyes away.

“Okay!” she said again, clapping her hands together awkwardly. “So now I’m going to go and we are all going to agree to _never_ talk about this again.”

Dick made a strangled noise that was probably agreement, adjusting his grip on the cowl.

“You know,” she told him, “if you’d asked me two years ago which one of the Batboys I was gonna see naked, I would _totally_ have guessed Tim.”

“Stephanie,” Barbara said evenly as Dick choked.

“Yeah?”

“Get out.”

“Getting.”

Stephanie got.

She paused briefly at the door to yell back, “Congrats on the sex!” before sprinting for the window and blessed, blessed obscurity.

* * *

As it turned out, she didn’t see Barbara the next day, or the day after; on the bright side, the essay did get written and submitted with only a 5-point late penalty. And then somehow Steph got roped into babysitting for one of her mom’s friends whose real babysitter came down with mumps of all things (like, seriously, is it 1902 again? vaccinate your freaking kids, people!) and by the time she finally made it home she collapsed straight into bed and was effectively dead to the world for the next 19 hours.

Sleep deficits are a bitch.

By the time she was in any kind of state to resume her _other_ work, enough time had passed that it could totally work to pretend that it was all just a very weird dream. Dick and Barbara would almost definitely let her get away with it, too. It would become just another one of those “stupid Steph” stories, right up there with the time she accidentally freeze-a-ranged Robin, or that time she accidentally started a gang war and got herself tortured to death, ha ha. That Steph, what a card.

So she could just leave it and let it get sanded over into another story about how she’d embarrassed herself.

Or she could…not.

She picked up a Sharpie from her desk and twirled it thoughtfully between her fingers.

* * *

She debated leaving the finished product in Barbara’s apartment, but eventually decided Barbara would be more annoyed than amused (plus, there was _no way_ she was going to risk a repeat performance. Once was enough), and in the end she left it folded neatly on top of the main console in the Batcave, right where Barbara couldn’t miss it when she came in to do weekly maintenance.

The next time Steph came in, it was gone and Barbara was faintly pink-cheeked, but didn’t say anything (and if she was a little more sadistic than usual during training, Steph can admit she might have deserved it), so Steph assumed it was done with.

Until one day when Dick had asked her over to the Bunker to work on strategies for multiple attackers with Damian (which basically boiled down to the two of them double-teaming the kid until he got frustrated enough to start pulling knives, and then listening to Dick try to explain why it was ok to beat the bad guys around the head with metal sticks but not to give them a couple of pokes with a short knife). Even after Damian stormed off in a huff and left them alone for the first time since the ‘incident’, it wasn’t _too_ awkward. Alfred’d brought down some sandwiches and Steph happily munched away and futzed around with her phone while Dick tinkered with his utility belt at one of the work stations.

So it was kind of a surprise when a very familiar engine came rumbling down one of the city-access ramps.

“Babs?” Dick said, perking up like a dog who’d just heard his favorite human opening the front door.

(Okay, so it was kind of sweet. And they totally made an adorable couple. Whatever went wrong the first time around, Dick, at least, was still _totally_ holding a torch.)

Dick vaulted over the railing and helped her pull her chair out of the car and unfold it. (Steph noticed that he didn’t try to hold it still while she transfered from car to chair, which Barbara had once confessed she hated and is more of a hindrance than a help anyway.)

From her position up on the Bunker’s main level, Steph couldn’t quite see Dick’s face, but she could hear in his voice the way his smile froze when he got a good look at Barbara.

“Uh, Babs… what exactly are you wearing?”

“Steph made it for me,” Barbara said innocently. “Don’t you like it?”

Dick shot a killer look at Stephanie, who was frozen in her seat. It had been a _joke_. Barbara wasn’t supposed to _keep_ it!

“Babs,” Dick said again, and then, pleadingly, “Barbara.”

“Richard?” Barbara replied pleasantly.

Dick flinched. “Whatever I did,” he said desperately, “I’m very sorry and I swear I will make it up to you, but Damian is upstairs and he’ll get bored of sulking any minute and I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet and he’s ten years old and there’s no way in hell he’s going to take… _that_ …well.”

Barbara’s smile didn’t flicker. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you started talking about my sex life. You know who called me this morning? Dinah. She was _gloating_.”

“I didn’t say a word to Dinah!” Dick protested.

“No, you told Wally, who told Roy, who told Conner who told Ollie who told Dinah.” In spite of her exaggerated scowl and crossed arms, there was a teasing light to Barbara’s eyes. “This is only fair turnabout.”

“C’mon, Babs, please, have mercy!” Dick cried, falling on his knees with his arms stretched out in over-dramatic supplication. “Do I have to beg? I’m warning you,I’ll do it.”

“You can try it,” Barbara replied archly, but her hand reached out to thread in his hair and pull him in closer—

“This can’t be happening,” Steph moaned, burying her face in her hands.

Dick and Barbara each started slightly, like they’d forgotten she was there (oh god, they had, they were totally going to do it right in front of her _again_ ).

Dick quickly pushed himself off his knees. It was a little bit unfair just how graceful he was doing it, too. “Uh, good job today, Steph. You’ve improved a lot. And thanks for all your help with Damian.”

Steph waved vaguely at him, tucking her phone in her back pocket. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, get lost so we can have some _adult time_. Just, like, hang a sock on a bat or something next time, jeez.”

Barbara snorted and Dick looked incredibly awkward for a moment, but pleased too.

And hopefully no one would ever find out about the picture she’d instinctively snapped while they’d been distracted. Dick on his knees with Barbara’s fingers tangled in his hair, and her smiling down at him with amused affection and wearing a yellow t-shirt with Steph’s best marker graffiti:

_I Banged the Batman_

(As it turned out, she wasn’t quite far enough away not to hear Damian’s shriek of outrage.)

* * *

(Epilogue)

Although Dick and Barbara continued to insist they were _not_ back together, no, really, we’re not (and maybe Stephanie was just imagining that Dick seemed a little half-hearted in his denials), The Shirt continued to make sporadic appearances (although increasing to twit Damian rather than Dick, who, after the first time, seemed immune and somewhat smug) until Bruce’s return, whereupon it vanished altogether (thank god, she was in enough trouble for the slap. Well, maybe. It was hard to tell with Bruce. Though she had a hunch he’d take The Shirt a lot worse than The Slap).

All in all, Stephanie assumed it was a brief humiliating/hilarious anecdote that she wouldn’t dare bust out until she was eighty and wrinkly and Bruce was in a grave for reals.

And then she came home from class and _Selina-freaking-Kyle_ was sitting on her bed, holding The Photo.

“If this is blackmail, then it’s 100% super-effective because I’m pretty sure I’m already shitting my pants,” she said immediately.

Catwoman (!!!) looked amused. “Should you really tell your blackmailer that?” she purred (there is literally no other word for it, especially not when she was wearing the whole black leather catsuit). “For all you know, you just doubled my price.”

“Yeah, no,” Steph said. “I wasn’t going to do whatever it is you want anyways, but I might just commit hara-kiri before Bruce can kill me himself. ‘Cause, like, I know the whole no-kill thing, but this might just push him over the edge.”

Catwoman (!!!!!!) laughed. “No offense to the last one, but I missed when Batgirl had some attitude.”

“Cass has plenty of attitude,” Steph disagreed. She hesitated a little before she said the next bit, but it wasn’t like Selina didn’t already _know._ “And besides, when you get fired by Batman and start a gang war and fake your own death, it gets a lot harder to give a shit.”

Something in Catwoman’s gaze was a little too close to sympathy, and Steph had to shake her head to clear it.

“So what was it that you wanted so much that you’re blackmailing me with one of my most humiliating memories and subsequent fashion faux pas?”

Selina quirked a smile, small and sly and far too much like the cat that caught the canary.

“Actually,” she says, “I was wondering— do you do commissions?”


End file.
